Bosnia & Herzegovina's last World Cup was 2014 in Brazil — Pjanić and Džeko and a country that had been independent for less than 20 years showing up at the biggest tournament on earth for the first time. They lost two, won one, went home. For twelve years since then, the country has watched everyone else qualify and wondered when the Dragons were coming back.
The answer, finally, is now. And the way it happened was exactly the kind of story Bosnia exports best: two playoff legs decided on penalties, against Wales and then against Italy, in March of this year. Four-time world champions Italy, out. Bosnia, in. The Sarajevo streets stayed loud for a week.
Sergej Barbarez — a former national team captain, also a former professional poker player (yes, really) — took over as manager in April 2024 and rebuilt the team around a 40-year-old Edin Džeko and a group of hungry next-generation attackers led by Ermedin Demirović and Kerim Alajbegović. Miralem Pjanić retired in December. This is not the 2014 team. It's the generation that grew up watching 2014.
Group B — Canada, Switzerland, Qatar, Bosnia — is winnable. The Dragons will travel, they will sing sevdalinka in whatever hotel bar will have them, and they will be one of the great neutrals' stories of the group stage. Back where they belong.
Week 1 Update: A 1-1 draw with Qatar — not the opening the Dragons wanted, but a point is a point after twelve years away. Bosnia controlled long stretches but couldn't find the winner. The group remains wide open, and with Switzerland and Canada also drawing, nobody has separated themselves yet. The sevdalinka continues.
Matchday 2 Update: The sevdalinka turned into a dirge. A 3-0 loss to Switzerland — the Nati were ruthless, Bosnia were outclassed, and the twelve-year wait is suddenly in danger of ending after two matches. One point from two games, and the final matchday against Canada — a co-host with momentum — is the last chance to salvage something from the return. Džeko looked every one of his 40 years.
Matchday 3 Update: Three-one over Qatar — the Dragons roared when it mattered. Bosnia finish 3rd in Group B with 4 points, and the team that beat Italy on penalties to get here won their final group match convincingly. Whether they advance depends on the third-place table. Džeko may have one more match left in him yet.
Round of 32 (July 1): Balogun's goal before half-time put the U.S. ahead, and when Balogun was red-carded in the 64th minute Bosnia had every chance to draw level. They pressed, they had the man advantage for 26 minutes, and they couldn't find the net. Tillman made it 2-0 in the 82nd and it was over. Džeko didn't score. The team that knocked out Italy on penalties to reach this World Cup bows out against the co-hosts in San Francisco. The sevdalinka was still playing in the concourse on the way out. The Dragons came back. That's enough for now.
He is 40 years old, the all-time leading scorer for his country (72 goals in 146 caps), and the last active member of the 2014 'golden generation' that carried Bosnia to their first-ever World Cup in Brazil. He left Serie A for the German second division to stay sharp for this summer, and he became the oldest scorer in 2. Bundesliga history in the process. Dalić, Koeman, everyone who has faced him says the same thing: Džeko in the box is still Džeko in the box.
The Atalanta left-back with the silhouette of a rugby flanker and the temperament to match. Famously intervened to stop an armed carjacking of his Arsenal teammate Mesut Özil in London in 2019. One of the Bundesliga's best attacking fullbacks for most of the 2010s. Returns to his third World Cup cycle as the elder presence in a defense that will need to absorb a lot against Switzerland and Canada.
Stuttgart's Bosnian-born forward who does the work Džeko no longer has to — pressing the first center-back, chasing the long diagonal, occupying two defenders so the captain can finish. Barbarez rebuilt the attack around this partnership after taking over in 2024, and it's the reason Bosnia beat Wales and Italy on penalties. Not a household name yet. Will be by July.
Ćevapi is the argument Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats will never settle — but in Sarajevo it's ten small grilled finger-sausages of minced beef and lamb, tucked into a warm somun flatbread with raw chopped onion and a spoonful of kajmak (thick clotted cream that shouldn't work on meat but does). Add burek, a coiled filo pie of lamb or cheese eaten standing up at a buregdžinica. Then sarma (stuffed cabbage rolls in winter), and bosanska kahva — Bosnian coffee, served in a bakreno džezva (copper pot) with a rahat lokum cube, sipped slowly, never hurried. The coffee ritual is the country.
Eddie's EuroMart (12243 E Northwest Hwy, Dallas) is the real Balkan source in North Texas — a deli and market stocked with imported Bosnian ingredients, ćevapi, burek, kajmak, and proper Balkan bread. Hours: Mon & Wed–Sun 9am–8pm; closed Tuesdays. The family that runs it knows the food and will point you to the right shelf. For a sit-down meal, pair it with a stop at any Mediterranean grill on Richardson's East Main strip — the flavors overlap more than you'd think. The old go-to, Balkan Garden Bistro in Grapevine, closed in 2024.
A soundtrack for the matches, the pregame, and the afterparty.
Bosnian support is unmistakable — blue kits, gold fleur-de-lis, and the word "Zmajevi" (Dragons) painted on banners twelve feet wide. They sing sevdalinka, the old Ottoman-era love laments of the Balkans, then switch to modern turbo-folk and back again without warning. You'll hear the gusle (a one-string fiddle) at pre-match gatherings and you'll smell cigarettes — a lot of cigarettes — because European football without tobacco is not a real thing yet to this crowd. They have waited twelve years for this. They will not be quiet.
Bosnia knocked four-time champions Italy out of the 2026 World Cup on penalties in the March playoff — their second-ever qualification as an independent nation, and the kind of scalp that gets replayed on state television for a decade.